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Citizen journalism from the front lines of America's weed wars: United States v. Marijuana. Follow court trials of medical marijuana patients in the Dispatches From the Field court reporting blog. Read essays by green POWs (marijuana prisoners of war) in Dispatches From Inside. Profiles of current marijuana POWs include prisoner addresses so you can write to a green prisoner today. Read about the persecution of medical cannabis patients in California, Montana, Washington, Colorado, Hawaii, and at the federal level in the Court Cases section ofUnited States v. Marijuana.

Christopher Bartkowicz POW #36791-013Christopher Bartkowicz #36791-013Leavenworth USPP.O. Box 1000
Leavenworth, KS 66048One day after he was interviewed on a local television station about his
home medical cannabis garden ...
Posted Feb 15, 2013, 2:02 PM by The Editor

Roger Christie POW #99279-022As of June 2013, Roger Christie has been held without bail in federal custody for over three years. He is currently incarcerated at the Honolulu Federal Detention Center awaiting trial ...
Posted Jun 11, 2013, 4:47 AM by The Editor

Dispatches From the Field

Sweeping Reform or Whack-A-Mole? by Cynthia JohnstonObama administration to allow recreational marijuana laws to stand.~ Los Angeles Times, August 29, 2013If success were measured by who we piss off, then we’re definitely on the right track with Attorney General Eric Holder’s staff memo telling the Justice Department not to stomp on Colorado and Washington for legalizing marijuana. Yes, indeed. A whole bunch of cops were royally pissed off. And they all signed an open letter to the AG voicing their displeasure. “Law enforcement becomes infinitely harder for our front-line men and women given the Department’s position,” they kvetched.The signature list reads like a flashback to a Las Vegas convention infamously attended by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson in 1971. It includes ...
Posted Mar 25, 2015, 10:41 PM by The Editor

President Obama Insults the Intelligence of America’s Youth By Dictating Marijuana Legalization Should Be Their Bottom PriorityRather than listening to his young constituents, President Obama disregards their highest priority—ending the failed pot prohibition policy of the United States—and condescendingly substitutes his own narrow-minded vision for the future.To prepare for his much anticipated interview with President
Obama, VICE’s Shane Smith solicited questions online in advance from readers. When
he interviewed the president last week, Smith saved the most popular subject
for the end: “For young people, I’m
sorry, but if you legalized marijuana, it would be the biggest part of your
legacy.”Barack Obama, who admittedly smoked weed in his youth, had
the audacity to declare, “First of all, it shouldn’t be young people’s biggest
priority.”Interviewer Smith attempted ...
Posted Mar 24, 2015, 3:33 AM by The Editor

United We Stand Festival Ignites a Wave of Action Among Independent Journalists and Active CitizensThe "United We Stand” festival kicked off on May 10th in downtown Los Angeles at the Belasco Theater with musical guests Immortal Technique, Wu-tang Clan, Rooftop Revolutionaries, A-Alikes, Sounds of Solidarity, Kellee Maize, and Chuck D of Public Enemy. Social activists on a #waveofaction at the festival included comedian Lee Camp, Green party political candidates Rosa Clemente and Jill Stein, March Against Monsanto founder Tami Canal, Emma Cape of Free Chelsea Manning, Diane Goldstein of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, authors Rosa Koire, Ellen Brown, and David Swanson, and dozens more.LOS ANGELES -- Hosted by the Free & Equal Elections Foundation, the inaugural “United We Stand” festival kicked off on May 10th in downtown Los Angeles, showcasing music, journalism, and ...
Posted Jun 5, 2014, 7:33 PM by The Editor

Global Cannabis March Los Angeles Represents Drug War Prisoners Serving Life Sentences for MarijuanaOn the first Saturday of May,
people gather in over 400 cities worldwide to celebrate cannabis hemp. The 16th
annual Los Angeles Global Cannabis March (also known as the Million Marijuana
March) marched at high noon along Crenshaw Boulevard to Leimert Park on Saturday,
May 3, 2013.
LOS ANGELES — Despite multiple
last minute changes at the whim of the LAPD and the City of Los Angeles, the 16th
annual Global Cannabis March took place on Saturday May 3rd in
solidarity with hundreds of cities around the world. Three
days prior to the event, the permit holder was informed that construction on
the Crenshaw Metro line required a shortening of the parade route. Social networks and phone chains ...
Posted May 5, 2014, 9:49 PM by The Editor

Federal Prison—American Hellhole by Cynthia JohnstonI wish I was a headlight on a north-bound train I’d shine my light through the cool Colorado rain. ~ “I Know You Rider,” Grateful Dead classic by “Traditional” The
Colorado sun was baking hot. The ground was still muddy from
thunderstorms that flooded Four Mile Canyon the night before. Clumps of
dirt and dung exploded into clouds of dust as I stroked the horse’s
flank with a stiff metal brush. Glittering dung-dust settled on my face
and arms as one word kept rolling around in my head: Scarmazzo.
Luke Scarmazzo. What he wouldn’t give for a cloud of sunlit dust. Luke
Scarmazzo. Locked away in a cold, cramped cage, Luke Scarmazzo is
serving over twenty ...
Posted Jun 10, 2013, 7:53 PM by The Editor

Cops Break Law on Taxpayer Dime: The Joe Grumbine Trial Covered by Cynthia JohnstonJust as every cop is a criminal, and all the sinners saints. As heads is tails, just call me Lucifer, ‘cause I’m in need of some restraint.~ The Rolling Stones, “Sympathy for the Devil”
“We lie to them,” testified Lead Detective Oscar Valenzuela. “We lie through our teeth." For once, he spoke the truth.
Lead Detective Oscar Valenzuela was on the stand as the People’s first
“expert” witness in the trial of former medical marijuana dispensary
owners Joe Byron and Joe Grumbine. It was Thursday, December 1, 2011 –
Day Four of a massively expensive and pointless criminal trial in Long
Beach, California. Detective Oscar Valenzuela was a main player in this
jaw-dropping drama.
Not for the first ...
Posted Jun 6, 2013, 5:27 AM by The Editor

Victory At Jury Trial for LA's Dopest Attorney by Jessica LuxOn May 31, 2011, defendant David Rios was found not guilty by a jury of his peers in the San Fernando Courthouse on charges of transporting five pounds of marijuana. Attorneys Allison Margolin and Raza Lawrence (Margolin & Lawrence, Beverly Hills, CA) demonstrated to the judge and jury that Mr. Rios was a qualified patient under Proposition 215 acting in accordance with state law. After three days of deliberation, spanning the Memorial Day weekend, the jury returned a NOT GUILTY verdict on all felony counts. Mr. Rios was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol (CHP) while transporting medicine for a collective from northern California to the Los Angeles area. Upon a search of the vehicle, officers found five 1 lb ...
Posted Feb 19, 2013, 5:28 AM by The Editor

Women in Prison -- An American Growth Industry by Cynthia Johnston However high the cost of justice,the cost of injustice is greater still.
Who says “American Exceptionalism” is dead? Not when it comes to incarceration. Nowhere on Earth -- except the USA -- does a country put more of its citizens in prison. And, increasingly, those citizens are female.
In 1980, before the War on Drugs became big
business and prison corporations were allowed to regain a toehold,
there were 12,300 women incarcerated in the United States. By 2008, that
number had grown to 207,700. The rate of increase between 1995 and 2008
alone was a staggering 203%. The $9 million dollars it cost to
incarcerate female offenders in 1980 has now ballooned to over $68.7
billion.
Who are ...
Posted Feb 16, 2013, 12:30 AM by The Editor

Prisoners -- America's New Cash Crop by Cynthia JohnstonA disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself. ~ Hannah Arendt
At the 2011 dedication ceremony for the Martin Luther King, Jr.
National Memorial, many speakers, including President Obama, quoted from
King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, in which King eloquently spoke
out for freedom and justice. Yet almost fifty years later King’s son,
Martin Luther King III, says his father’s dream has not been realized,
that America has “lost its soul,” in part by “having more people of
color in prison than in college.” He is not wrong. According to the Drug
Policy Alliance, in the last decade nearly one in three
African-American men aged 20-29 ...
Posted Feb 15, 2013, 3:39 PM by The Editor

Court Support Now by Joe Grumbine
At a time when everybody is distracted by mere survival, it’s hard to imagine you can change the world.
In fact, the easiest and most powerful thing you can do as an activist is show up in court. By just showing up to bear witness, you empower the defendant, you hold the judge accountable, you give the defense attorneys a chance to shine and you knock the prosecutor off his game. All that can add up to the magic words: “Not guilty.”
Or, “In the interest of justice, case dismissed.”I know. I’ve seen it happen.I’ve seen a man’s anguish turn to resolve at the sight of twenty people wearing solidarity ribbons show up at ...
Posted Feb 19, 2013, 5:27 AM by The Editor

Dispatches From Inside

Medical Malfeasance by POW Tom KikuchiIt started out like any other prison night. LPOP had just sent me the latest Dean Koontz novel and I was eager to dig into it. The lights go out in the dorm at 10 PM but inmates are allowed to purchase AAA battery powered reading lights that clip onto the back cover of a book. With these discrete lights, I could read until the wee hours of the morning if I cared to. This night, however, was not to be one of enjoyment and mental escape. Shortly after the dorm's harsh fluorescent lighting went off, there is a relative quiet with the sounds of snoring punctuating the stillness. I was intently following Koontz's storyline in the dim ...
Posted Feb 3, 2013, 10:36 AM by The Editor

A Open Letter to President Obama by POW David Allen, M.D. Dear President Obama,A Travesty of Justice Occurs: When cannabis is intentionally mis-scheduled by the federal government, as having no medical use and not safe under a physician’s supervision, despite mountains of scientific evidence proving multiple uses and safety, unsurpassed by any man-made medication. When scientific medical study of cannabis is prevented by the government to perpetuate intentional mis-scheduling of cannabis. When intentional mis-scheduling of cannabis is used by local government to profit from seized property and incarceration of citizens, and deny them the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. When police seize legally purchased property prior to court appearance or a chance to defend yourself in court (establishing guilt prior to ...
Posted Feb 3, 2013, 10:41 AM by The Editor

8,000 Days to Emancipation by POW Luke ScarmazzoThis essay was written in spring 2011, live from United States Penitentiary Lompoc, when Luke was serving year three of his thirty-year prison sentence. Luke Scarmazzo will be incarcerated until the year 2027 for operating a legal CA medical marijuana
dispensary. As school children we are all taught that you are innocent
until proven guilty but any good defense attorney will tell you that the
American justice system operates on exactly the opposite premise. Before one
word of argument is spoken, the defendant starts out surrounded by a cloud of
guilt and has to fight both tooth and
nail to dispel this prejudice; the rules of the courtroom are slanted heavily
in favor of the prosecution.
Also, to make ...
Posted Jan 28, 2013, 12:58 AM by The Editor

Court Cases

United States v. Larry Duke (Life Without Parole)Larry Ronald Duke was convicted of conspiring to possess with the intent to distribute in excess of 1,000 kilograms of marijuana –and attempted possession with the intent to distribute ...
Posted Mar 25, 2015, 10:07 PM by The Editor

United States v. Aaron Sandusky (CA-2012 arrest)Southern California medical marijuana patient and provider Aaron Sandusky is serving a 10 year federal prison sentence for operating a medical cannabis cooperative in full compliance with state law.Federal ...
Posted Mar 24, 2015, 11:12 PM by The Editor

United States v. Noah Kleinman (2011-present)The Obama administration's tactic against medical marijuana in California has been to have US Attorneys send letters threatening landlords with property forfeiture for renting their
property to dispensaries deemed ...
Posted Jun 2, 2014, 12:22 PM by The Editor

United States v. Roger Christie (2010-present, Hawai'i)As of June 2013, Roger Christie has been held without bail in
federal custody for over three years. He is currently incarcerated at
the Honolulu Federal Detention Center awaiting trial ...
Posted Jun 11, 2013, 5:17 AM by The Editor

United States v. Chris Lindsey (2011-2013, Helena, MT)Montana Cannabis was one of the most visible state medical marijuana providers raided in the March 2011 statewide crackdown by federal authorities. Chris Lindsey, an attorney and co-founder of ...
Posted Jun 6, 2013, 3:29 AM by The Editor

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.